Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  M 87  ·  NGC 4476  ·  NGC 4478  ·  NGC 4486
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M87 and its Relativistic Plasma Jet, AwesomeAstro
M87 and its Relativistic Plasma Jet
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M87 and its Relativistic Plasma Jet

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M87 and its Relativistic Plasma Jet, AwesomeAstro
M87 and its Relativistic Plasma Jet
Powered byPixInsight

M87 and its Relativistic Plasma Jet

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Description

I realized, after making the mosaic of Markarian's chain and M87, that I captured enough detail in the small integration time of M87 (less than an hour) to show the visible parts of its plasma jet!

This galaxy contains the recently imaged super black hole, which is believed to also be spinning. The energy from this angular motion is proposed as the mechanism for propelling highly ionized matter out of the center of the galaxy before being accreted by the black hole itself. When propelled at nearly the speed of light, this material shows relativistic effects and the jet becomes a relativistic jet. The jet leaves the plane of the accretion disk perpendicularly and because of the emitted light's plane polarization, it has been proposed that the material forming the light is relativistically fast electrons moving through intense magnetic fields.

The supermassive black hole, M87* ("M87 star"), is one of the largest ever discovered, estimated at around 7 billion times the mass of our sun. This galaxy is one of the most intense sources of radio waves visible.

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M87 and its Relativistic Plasma Jet, AwesomeAstro